For the Type C, or creative, personalities who want their work to "fill" their deepest creative urges, this is the frontline guide to making the transition from a secure and soulless job to a life built around a creative dream. Individuals learn how to follow the mind's eye to construct a life that conforms to personal vision, steal time to make creative dreams come true, use as assets the resources around them, and turn creative goals and objectives into an effective life plan.
“Having successfully gone through the type of career transition described in this book, I can appreciate not only its masterful detailing of the process but also its thoughtful, thought-provoking challenge to all those thinking of undergoing their own transitions.” (Ira Wohl, Academy Award–winning director turned psychotherapist )
About the Author
Kenneth Atchity is a writer, producer, literary manager, and former professor of comparative literature. He currently lives in Los Angeles.
With more than forty years experience in the publishing world, and over fifteen years in entertainment, I absolutely love being a "story merchant"--writer, producer, teacher, and literary manager, responsible for launching dozens of books and films. My life's passion is finding great storytellers and turning them into bestselling authors and screenwriters--and making films which send their stories around the world.
I've produced 26 films, including "Joe Somebody" (Tim Allen; Fox), "Life or Something Like It" (Angelina Jolie; Fox), "The Amityville Horror" (NBC), "Shadow of Obsession" (NBC), "The Madam's Family" (CBS). "Meg" (New Line), "Demon Keeper" (Fox 2000), "Henry's List of Wrongs" (New Line), and Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not (starring Jim Carrey; Paramount) are approaching production. Full film bio at www.imdb.com.
My 14 books include books for writers at every stage of their career. Based on my teaching, managing, and writing experience, I've successfully built bestselling careers for novelists, nonfiction writers, and screenwriters from the ground up. Clients include bestsellers Steve Alten, Royce Buckingham, Jamise Dames, Noire, Shirley Palmer, Tracy Price-Thompson, Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not!, Cheryl Saban, and Governor Jesse Ventura. Now, as chairman and CEO of Atchity Entertainment International, Inc., my Story Merchant companies, www.aeionline.com and www.thewriterslifeline.com, provide a one-stop full-service development and management machine for commercial and literary writers who wish to launch their storytelling in all media---from publishing and film and television production, to Web presence and merchandising & licensing.
I was born in Eunice, Louisiana; and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, where I attended Rockhurst High School (and was editor in chief of The Prep News). After undergraduate work at Georgetown (A.B., English/Classics), and getting my Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale, I served as professor and chairman of comparative literature and creative writing at Occidental College (Faculty Achievement Award; published articles, reviews, short stories, and poems in major journals and magazines throughout the world).
Editor of CQ: Contemporary Quarterly: Poetry and Art
Co-founder and -editor (with Marsha Kinder of Dreamworks: An Interdisciplinary Journal Devoted to the Relationship between Dreams and the Arts (authors published and/or advisory board included Joyce Carol Oates, Ursula Leguin, Ernest Cardenal, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Paul Bowles, John Fowles, Hubert Selby, John Rechy, Stephen King, Georges Simenon, Carlos Fuentes, Eugene Ionesco).
Served as Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Bologna
Distinguished Instructor, UCLA Writers Program
Regular columnist-reviewer for The Los Angeles Times Book Review (involved in establishing the Los Angeles Times Book Awards)
Vice-president of P.E.N. Los Angeles
I'ves made numerous radio and television appearances, and given inspirational keynote talks at writers conferences, speaking on the world of professional storytelling, the storyteller's market, the storyteller's process, creativity, dreams, and various academic and entertainment and publishing related subjects.
I wrote and served as on-camera talent for Synapse Technology's "Columbus: The Voyage of Discovery," and consulted for the Discovery Channel's series, "The Power of Dreams."
This review is from: How to Escape Lifetime Security and Pursue Your Impossible Dream: A Guide to Transforming Your Career (Paperback)
I want to thank Kenneth Atchity, a creative genius for sharing his brilliant mind and writing an inspirational masterpiece that made me realize it is normal to be crazy enough to pursue my dreams for as long as I have been pursuing them and even though I sometimes feel that I have gotten nowhere, it is safe to believe that someday I will reach that place that I need to be and the true success is that I keep going until I get there, because no other place will do.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: How to Escape Lifetime Security and Pursue Your Impossible Dream: A Guide to Transforming Your Career (Paperback)
I always find self-help books to be the most useful when the author has accomplished something more difficult than what I am seeking to do. The lessons from a more challenging transition always seem to make it more obvious to me what I should do.
Top film producer, author and agent, Dr. Kenneth Atchity, has been there and done that. He turned his back on lifetime tenure as a respected professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles to become a creative force and deal-maker in both Hollywood and New York. Why? He wanted to live his dreams . . . rather than be merely secure.
As I often say to friends, I'd rather be exhausted than bored. Dr. Atchity seems to operate on the same wavelength.
The book has a much more sophisticated view of the psychology of personal change than I have read in more self-help books. Dr. Atchity is either extremely self-aware . . . or he has spent a lot of time on somebody's couch.
I found the concepts in his book to be very interesting and helpful. He describes how our minds normally oscillate between the visionary who creates our dreams (who sets no limits) and the accountant (who wants meat and potatoes on the table today). This oscillation can be destructive of both our dreams and our security. In the book, he describes an alternative, a Type C, who reconciles dreams and security in ways that make both more realizable.
I especially liked his discussions of the realities behind the things people fear most: losing their homes; not being able to pay their bills; and filing for bankruptcy. As he points out, it's not great . . . but it's not the end of the world.
Anyone who becomes self-employed will see many ups and downs in their income and prospects. With years of experience, you come to realize that every "down" is merely setting up a future "up" and you act accordingly.
Dr. Atchity seems to have an emotional life that can go up and down with the seasons of his professional life. I was impressed by his many suggestions for how to avoid emotional lows, drag yourself out of an emotional hole and make the most out of your highs.
The Type C concept and the idea about the tension between dreams and security are based in Dr. Atchity's own family. If you have family members who actively encourage and discourage your dreams, you'll recognize what he describes.
If you've ever talked yourself out of living your dreams, you should read this book. You may just want to change your mind, now!
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: How to Escape Lifetime Security and Pursue Your Impossible Dream: A Guide to Transforming Your Career (Paperback)
Kenneth Atchity has an amazing personal story. He was a tenured professor in literature when he gave up literal lifetime security to follow his dream to produce movies in Hollywood. And he succeeded! So you don't feel he's asking you to do anything he wouldn't do himself. It's almost as if he is on a hero's journey and you just want to join him.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
